


Maybe It's Madelyn

by popfly



Series: Maybe It's Madelyn [1]
Category: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, M/M, Nail Polish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popfly/pseuds/popfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick lets Maddy paint his nails, and it starts more than just a new superstition. Featuring matchmaker Madelyn Sharp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe It's Madelyn

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Lyn's fault.

Patrick is pulling off his winter gloves, shoving them into his coat pocket, and reaching to hang the coat in his stall when he hears Johnny make a choked off sound behind him.

“Kaner, your fingers.”

Patrick looks down at them, at his nails painted sloppily red, flecks of gold glitter glinting in the harsh overhead lights. There are smears of polish on his cuticles, almost down to the first knuckle on his index finger, and he resists the urge to stuff his hands in his pockets.

Johnny is snickering, that stupid chuff of a laugh that makes Patrick grin, ducking to hide it so he can act irritated.

“Shut up, dude, I was hanging out with Maddy earlier and she wanted to paint them.” Patrick yanks his tie off and balls it up, throwing it at Johnny’s face when Johnny snorts.

“Man, that kid has you wrapped around her little finger,” Johnny says, kicking the tie back towards Patrick, his cheeks red from laughter.

“You’re just jealous ‘cause I’m her favorite,” Patrick says, and Johnny shuts up because Patrick is totally right.

He plays like he’s possessed that night, scoring two goals and getting assists on two more, and he feels like he’s got the puck on a string. He’s buzzing in the locker room after, cracking jokes with the guys as he peels off his gear, chirping Johnny about his point drought, ignoring the way Johnny’s mouth tightens up, and greeting the media with a grin.

He keeps his hands twisted in a towel so the reporters don’t notice the nail polish, and thinks he’ll have to keep it. He’s never been that superstitious, but he thinks if he wants to keep skating like he’s flying the nail polish probably has to stay.

He gives Johnny a good natured shove in the parking lot, sending him off towards his car. Normally they’d meet up after a win, and Patrick would let Johnny do his post-mortem rundown of all the ways they played well and all the ways they could play better. But after so many years of playing together Patrick has learned when Johnny needs to be alone, to sulk or stew or whatever he needs to do, and tonight is one of those nights. There’s no rhyme or reason to Johnny’s moods so Patrick just goes with the flow, gets in his car and heads back to his condo.

He does feel bad about the point drought comment, so he shoots off a quick text, _Don’t punch any walls, can’t score a point if your hands are broken._ , sticks a French flag emoji on the end of it for shits and giggles, before he climbs into bed. The glitter in his nail polish sparkles in the moonlight seeping through the blinds, and he grins at it before drifting off to sleep.

 

Johnny doesn’t get a point in their next game either, but Patrick racks up another three, and he’s had banner years before but right now he feels like he can do no wrong, passing like the other teams defense doesn’t even exist and getting a goal from an angle that should’ve literally been impossible. The media are all over him in the locker room again, but he waves them away with his gloves still on, sends them in Seabs’s direction, because he’d scored a killer goal too and deserves the attention.

Johnny’s frowning down at his skates, unlaced but not removed, sweat dripping off the end of his nose, and Patrick clomps over, hands him a towel.

“I could swim in the wrinkles you’re getting from frowning, dude,” Patrick says, and flicks his forehead with his fingers, right in the red marks his helmet always makes, something he’s done a million times before. He could find that spot with his eyes closed, he thinks. Johnny goes cross-eyed watching his fingers, and Patrick waits for the retaliation, but none comes. Instead Johnny’s eyes go wide, that crazed light in them that Patrick knows too well.

“Fuck, I hate that look.”

“Shut up Kaner,” Johnny says, and he sounds more like himself than he has in days, so Patrick makes the ugliest face he can to get Johnny to roll his eyes, and grins down at him.

“Just don’t drag me into whatever manic shit you’ve got going through that skull,” Patrick says, and dances back before Johnny’s punch can connect with his thigh.

They walk out to the lot together after they’re showered and back in their suits, and Patrick lets Johnny hook his arm around Patrick’s neck and dig his knuckles into Patrick’s skull, even if it makes him feel all of twelve years old, and kind of hurts too.

“You’re a tool,” Patrick says, rubbing where Johnny’s sharp ass knuckles had just been, but it’s worth it when Johnny smiles, walking backwards towards his car.

“You coming over?”

Patrick rolls his eyes and pretends to deliberate, the whole dog-and-pony, Kaner-and-Tazer show that they’ve been putting on since their first year. “I don’t know, it’s late.”

“Whatever, I’ll see you in a few.”

Patrick flicks his hand over his shoulder and gets into his car, and waits until he’s out of the lot before he lets his smile escape.

 

“Wait until you see this.”

Patrick looks up from his laces into Sharpy’s grinning face. “What?”

Sharpy presses his lips together and raises his eyebrows, but his head tilts slightly, and Patrick glances over to his right, where Johnny’s strapping on his pads with a determined set to his jaw. Patrick is about to look back at Sharpy, go through the whole routine of dragging the information out of him because Sharpy’s a dick who likes to play those kinds of games, when Johnny moves his hand and the light reflects off his nails.

They’re painted.

“Oh my god,” Patrick says, his voice hushed with glee.

“He came over and asked Maddy to do them,” Sharpy says, and he’s almost wriggling with his happiness, like a puppy. Patrick can get behind that, because watching Johnny pull on his gear with red painted nails is like Christmas and his birthday rolled into one.

“That is the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever seen,” Patrick says, still whispering, because he doesn’t want to break the moment, not for anything in the world.

Johnny’s bionic hearing kicks in anyway, because it always seems to do that when Patrick is talking about him, especially with Sharpy, and he jerks his head up to pin them with his crazy shark eyes. He narrows them, and opens his mouth.

Patrick holds up his hands, palms out first in supplication, then nails out so Johnny can see how they’re still painted, if a little chipped. Johnny’s jaw works like he chewing on his words so he can swallow them down, and Patrick sighs, nudging Sharpy away from him with his foot.

“If it helps you score, dude,” Patrick says, and Sharpy lets out a disappointed sigh, going back to his stall.

Sharpy may like to play with fire, but Patrick has long since learned when to put down the matches.

 

Patrick and Johnny don’t sit next to each other on the bench anymore. They don’t sit next to each other anywhere, really, unless they’re alone. They’ve grown out of that compulsive need to be within arms reach, and Patrick likes it, that now when they’re together it’s because they want to be, and not because Patrick needs to or he’ll go nuts, or Johnny feels like he has to because otherwise Patrick’ll go nuts. Sometimes he misses their elbows knocking together as they argue about the game, but he just leans across Saad and taps Johnny’s knee with his glove, and they argue that way. Saad shifts backwards to let them.

Tonight there’s no arguing necessary, because they’re both fucking owning the ice, and Q only lets them skate two shifts separately before putting them on the same line. They don’t skate together often during regulation play, haven’t for a few seasons other than special teams, but when they do they’re magic, and tonight is even better. Tonight it’s like they’re the only two people on the ice.

Johnny scores during their first shift together. It’s off a feed from Patrick that is so beautiful he’s sure it’ll be in the top plays, the puck almost bending around defensemen before finding Johnny’s tape, and Johnny whacks it right into the net, over the reaching glove of the goalie. Johnny’s eyes are blazing behind his visor as he pummels right into Patrick after, knocking him into the boards, but he’s not shouting like he usually does. He knocks their helmets together, his mouth as close to Patrick’s ear as he can get it, and his breath is harsh around a raw-sounding, “Fuck yeah, Kaner.”

Patrick’s long past popping awkward boners in his cup, that shit can seriously hurt, but he feels a shiver run up his spine that has nothing to do with adrenaline or the ice he’s standing on.

Thankfully they’re piled on by their teammates then and Patrick focuses on them, tapping their helmets and grinning.

In the locker room between periods Johnny huddles together with Sharpy, and Patrick almost lazily tamps down the weak flare of jealousy he still gets when Johnny gets that close to other people. He’s secure in their relationship, even if it’s not exactly the kind that Patrick still wants, can’t help himself wanting. Sharpy jerks away from Johnny suddenly, doubling over with laughter on the bench, and Johnny’s glaring daggers at him, a look Patrick is all too familiar with.

“Share with the class,” Seabs says, and Sharpy sputters, pointing at Johnny.

“He wants,” he starts, but then he’s off again, cackling now, and Patrick can’t help but grin when Johnny goes even more red in the face. He picks at his fingernail, and Patrick sucks in a breath, making Johnny’s head snap up, gaze locking on Patrick’s.

“You want everyone to get their nails painted,” Patrick says, and he can feels his face stretching into what Johnny calls his “unholy grin”. Johnny huffs, and Sharpy’s doubled over again, crying with laughter now.

“All I know is you’ve been skating like it’s game seven of the Stanley Cup finals, and I haven’t scored in five games until tonight.” Johnny punctuates his sentence by holding his hands up, showing his nails off to everyone in the room. There are a few scattered snickers, but no one says a word.

“You don’t honestly believe it’s because Maddy painted your nails?”

“How come you haven’t removed yours, then?”

Patrick scoffs, but he’s caught. “I didn’t want to buy remover,” he tries, and even Sharpy takes a break from his hysterics to roll his eyes at Patrick. “Okay, but we’re winning right now, why does everyone have to get their nails painted?”

“Can’t hurt,” Duncs pipes up from down the bench, and everyone turns to gape at him. Seabs looks so betrayed he actually puts his hand over his heart. Johnny stabs a finger in Duncs’s direction, and Duncs tilts his head, acknowledging.

The conversation is cut short by Q coming in to rile them up for the next period, and then Johnny has to give his standard “be better” speech, the first-period-and-we’re-up-a-goal version, one of many that Patrick has almost memorized.

Johnny doesn’t let it go, and by the end of the game he has a couple more people convinced, so they make plans to gather at Sharpy’s before they have to board the plane for their road trip, and Patrick agrees to join because he can’t miss this.

He could use a fresh coat of polish anyway.

 

Maddy is the best person Patrick knows, even if she is all of four years old, and he tries to spend as much time with her as he possibly can. She loves Patrick more than anyone, other than her parents of course, so much that she wears an 88 jersey to the games instead of her father’s 10, to Patrick’s never ending delight. She comes barreling at his knees as soon as he’s inside, and Abby steps out of the way laughing as her daughter nearly knocks Patrick over, throwing her arms around his legs and looking up at him through her lashes.

His heart skips a beat, like it does every time, and he grins down at her helplessly.

“Uncle Kaner, Uncle Kaner,” she says, and he reaches down to grab her under her arms and haul her up against his hip.

“Maddy, Maddy,” he says, making her giggle, wrapping one arm around his shoulders.

“Uncle Duncs and Uncle Biscuit are here to get their nails painted.”

“Are they really?” He lugs her over to the couch where Duncs and Seabs are perched, Gatorade bottles tucked between their knees. Duncs is mellow as ever but Seabs looks bemused, eyeing the bottle of polish on the coffee table like it might explode and kill him with glittery shrapnel.

“Yuh-huh. Uncle Johnny too.”

Patrick looks around as he sets her on the couch next to Seabs, plopping down beside her. “Where is Uncle Johnny?”

“Out back with Patrick,” Abby says, leaning over the back of the couch and grabbing Patrick’s hand. “Should’ve known you’d be a nail biter,” she mutters, inspecting his nails and shaking her head.

“Yeah, yeah, bad habit, blah blah,” he says, and grins when she drops his hand and slaps him in the back of the head.

“We’re going to have to remove the old stuff before we can paint it new, and I won’t let Maddy handle the remover. Think you can, or do I need to do it for you?”

“I don’t know why I like coming over here,” Patrick says, but he’s smiling, and Maddy pinches his leg, frowning.

“For me,” she says, and Patrick reaches out to tickle her.

“No pinching,” Abby says, and heads down the hallway towards the bathroom.

“You hit him,” Maddy calls after her, and Patrick swallows a laugh. She inherited her father’s argumentative nature, unfortunately for Abby.

“Mommies are allowed,” Sharpy says, coming into the room, trailing a grim but determined looking Johnny behind him. Sharpy gives Patrick a smack to the back of the head on his way past, and Patrick glares up at him.

“What was that for?”

Sharpy ignores him, coming around the couch to sprawl in his favorite armchair. “Daddies are allowed, too,” he says, grinning smugly at Maddy.

Maddy looks like she’s trying to find a loophole in that argument, but she doesn’t say anything more.

“Who’s first?” Abby comes back with cotton balls and a bottle of nail polish remover, dumping them in Patrick’s lap. She kneels on the floor next to the coffee table and spreads out some newspaper, and Maddy scrambles off the couch to join her.

“I’ll go,” Duncs says, and Abby makes him spread his hand out on the paper while Maddy carefully unscrews the cap of the polish.

Patrick opens the nail polish remover and takes a deep breath, the smell of acetone making him think of weekend mornings in his parents’ living room, playing video games while his sisters crowded around him on the couch, gossiping idly and doing their nails. He feels a pang of nostalgia, a little homesickness, something he’s used to after years in Detroit and then London and then Chicago, and all the cities and countries in between, and makes a mental note to text his sisters later, organize a group chat.

He shakes his head a little to clear it, pulling out a cotton ball and getting ready to soak it when he catches Johnny staring at him from across the room. His face is twisted up into the weird, inscrutable expression he sometimes gets that Patrick still hasn’t figured out, but he rearranges it into a teasing smirk when he sees what Patrick’s doing, pressing the cotton to the mouth of the bottle and tipping it slightly.

“Don’t be jealous of my skills,” Patrick says, setting the remover down and rubbing the wet cotton ball over his finger. It snags on his rough cuticles and stings a little in the places he’s chewed his nails too short.

Johnny rolls his eyes, and Patrick tosses the red-streaked cotton ball at him. Johnny juggles it from hand to hand and then kind of sniffs at it, wrinkling his nose. “That shit,” he starts, and then grimaces an apology at Abby. “That stuff,” he corrects himself, “stinks.”

“Well duh.”

Johnny kind of dabs at his nails with the cotton, which Patrick is sure is too dry and covered in polish to be effective, frowning so hard his eyebrows have merged into one over the bridge of his nose.

“Oh my god,” Patrick says, and slides off the couch, knee-walking over to Johnny’s seat and snatching the cotton ball out of his hands. “You need a new one, you giant dufus.”

Patrick settles back on his heels and wets a new cotton ball, holding it out to Johnny. Johnny just gapes at him a little, and Patrick sighs, long-suffering, and grabs at Johnny’s hand. He holds his wrist, letting Johnny’s fingers kind of drape over the heel of Patrick’s hand, and starts rubbing at Johnny’s index finger nail. He’s concentrating on removing all traces of the polish from Johnny’s surprisingly smooth cuticles, digging with the edge of his own nail to get at the edges, and he doesn’t notice how quiet the room has gotten, how Johnny is stock still in his seat.

Patrick glances up, tongue between his teeth and Johnny’s hand tense in his own, and Johnny’s eyes are wide, almost black and like laser beams on Patrick’s face. Johnny’s got his mouth hanging open, which isn’t that abnormal, but he’s breathing kind of funny, and Patrick only realizes when he hears Duncs cough quietly behind him that he’s on his knees between Johnny’s spread thighs, looking up at him through his eyelashes, and holding his hand.

Patrick swallows.

“Uh,” he says, and Maddy lets out a peal of laughter, breaking the tension in the room.

“You’re done, Uncle Duncs,” she cries, and when Patrick looks over his shoulder everyone is staring at him except Maddy, who is putting a finishing flourish on Duncs’s knuckle with the nail polish brush.

He turns back to Johnny, who has his jaw clenched now, a flush over his cheeks, and Patrick has to fight not to scramble back and away, he’s embarrassed Johnny and now he feels embarrassed as well.

“I think you get it now,” he mutters, and shoves the bottle of remover and the cotton balls into Johnny’s hands, pushing up from the floor.

“Who’s up next,” Abby asks, and Patrick uses the opportunity to shuffle people around on the couch, pushing Seabs in front of Maddy and her brush, and squeezing between him and Duncs. Duncs has his fingers held up in front of him, blowing idly on his messily painted nails.

“Looks good,” Patrick says, gruff, and Duncs gingerly pats his knee.

 

Patrick sits with Duncs on the plane and lets his and Seabs’s chatter wash over him. He’s got his headphones on but nothing playing, he wants to sleep but is too keyed up. He feels bad about Johnny, about the stiff way he’d held himself when he’d said goodbye at the Sharps’s, and the way he’d barely nodded hello to Patrick when they were all gathering at the airport. Johnny stayed glued to Sharpy’s side from the terminal to the tarmac, and they’re sitting together near the front of the plane, and Patrick feels itchy under his skin.

He asks the conditioning coach if they can get together once they’ve landed, because there are knots in his back that experience has taught him can only be worked out, and he knows better than to run off to the gym and kill himself with the free weights. He does a few sets with the coach looking over him, filling his lungs and trying to exhale all his frustration, pretending that every time he lowers the barbell it’s shoving thoughts of Johnny, of what else he could do on his knees between Johnny’s legs, back into the corner of Patrick’s mind that they were usually banished to.

Patrick and Johnny had hooked up before, but it had tapered off around the same time that they were put on different lines, after Patrick had gone a little crazy (with wanting another Cup but not being able to win one, with wanting more of Johnny but not being able to win that either), and they never talked about it. It had been convenient, sharing hotel rooms and spending all their time together, and their on-ice chemistry translated off-ice, just as explosive in the bedroom as they were when they were fighting on the bench or in the locker room.

It had been a good run, pre-game hand jobs in the shower and post-game blow jobs, sex when they had an off day and Johnny would unclench enough to agree to it, usually after Patrick teased him until Johnny either wanted to punch him or fuck him into the mattress. But Patrick knew it wasn’t going to last forever, that Johnny was eventually going to get sick of him and break it off, or find a girl that didn’t drive him up the wall the way Patrick did, and settle down.

It was more anti-climactic than that, just one night that Patrick had shown up at Johnny’s house, wound up from a bad game and ready to fight, and then fuck, but Johnny had refused to be baited, had just sighed and said, “Go home, Kaner.”

And that was that.

Patrick pants on the weight bench, the conditioning coach hovering over him with a towel and a bottle of water, saying, “That’s enough I think, yeah?” Patrick nods and the coach drops the towel onto his face, blocking out the lights.

 

There’s a little chirping in the locker room the next day about the nail polish, but Duncs glares at everyone that says it’s stupid or superstitious, and then proceeds to play the game of his life with Seabs, an un-fuck-with-able brick wall of defense the whole night, the two of them seemingly everywhere the other team wants to put the puck, and Seabs scores on a Howitzer of a slapshot in the second period that almost burns a hole through the back of the net.

Patrick scores once as well, and Johnny assists on another, and after the game Sharpy howls with laughter as people gather around him, making plans to go over to his place for Madelyn Sharp manicures.

The media picks up on it that night, too, because Duncs gets caught on screen changing while Seabs is doing an interview with his own hands tucked into the top of his pants. The next day there’s a headline on Deadspin, “Blackhawks’ polished play” that makes Johnny clench his hands into fists, thumbs tucked inside, and Patrick can’t even shove him around until he loosens up because things still feel weird with them.

The chatter on the internet doesn’t stop Sharpy from coordinating a manicure party with Abby and Maddy for as soon as they’re back in Chicago, and Patrick rides out to the ‘burbs with Duncs and Seabs, because they’ve all chewed off enough of their polish to want a fresh coat.

Maddy is in her element, wearing a paint-splattered Blackhawks tee shirt and leggings, her hair pulled back in a ponytail that bounces all over when she runs over to hug Patrick’s legs. Patrick does a lap of the house with her on his shoulders, and she clasps her hands over his forehead and squeals when he jumps up and down the stairs.

The rookies go first, and Maddy is shy with them, unsure, taking her time painting as neatly as possible, because she’s not used to them yet. Patrick sits close and pokes her side in between coats, when she doesn’t have the brush in her hand, to make her giggle. She swats him and says, “Uncle Kaner” in the most adorable admonishing voice ever, even if she is smiling up at him with bright eyes, making his heart seize up in his chest.

He puts off taking the polish remover from Seabs for as long as he can, because now the smell is going to make him think of Johnny looking down at him, breathing ragged in his throat, instead of wholesome memories of home and his sisters, and he absolutely does not need to get all stupid and melancholy in the middle of the Sharps’s living room surrounded by his whole team.

He drinks a beer first, and when he goes to pee he peeks into the medicine cabinet, latching onto a tub of Vicks VapoRub like it’s a lifeline and rubbing a little under his nose. His eyes water, but he figures it should do the trick.

It does, and the smell of the remover barely filters through when he finally takes it from Seabs, only makes his veins thrum a little bit.

As their nails dry some of the guys head out, leaving in small groups until the only people left are Patrick, Johnny, Duncs, and Seabs. Duncs and Seabs are waving their freshly painted fingers in front of them, sprawled on the couch, and Johnny has wandered off somewhere with Sharpy.

Patrick goes last, and Maddy’s starting to droop, glopping paint onto his nails haphazardly while Abby tries to direct her with a hand around her wrist.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind,” Patrick says, and smiles at Maddy. “You’re doing a great job, dollface.”

Maddy beams, and paints a stripe down the middle of his nail from cuticle to the tip of his finger, the polish cold against the skin there. “Thanks, Uncle Kaner. You look very pretty.”

Patrick can hear Johnny snort, and startles slightly, wonders when he came back into the room.

“Don’t worry,” Maddy says, dropping her voice, and both Abby and Patrick lean closer to hear her. “Johnny thinks you’re pretty too.”

“What?” Patrick asks, and narrows his eyes at Abby, who’s drawn back and put her hand over her mouth, smothering a laugh.

“He looks at you like Daddy looks at Mommy, and Daddy tells Mommy she’s pretty all the time, doesn’t he Mommy?”

Abby is gathering herself behind her hand, her eyes twinkling at Patrick, and Patrick feels like he’s falling down a hole that has no bottom. Abby coughs, and lowers her hand, and keeps her face totally straight when she says, “That’s right, sweetheart, he does.”

“Does Johnny ever tell you you’re pretty, Uncle Kaner?”

Patrick is struck completely dumb, and hopes like hell no one else is listening to this conversation, but he can see Sharpy creeping closer out of the corner of his eye, and he is so, so fucked. “Uh,” Patrick says, his voice a croak. “No.”

Maddy frowns. “That’s not nice. When you love someone you’re s’posed to tell them they’re pretty, that’s what Daddy says.”

“I,” Patrick says, and turns his pleading look on Abby, who has given up all pretense and fallen back against the couch, laughing so hard she’s crying.

“Best daughter ever,” Sharpy says, and comes around to drop a kiss on Maddy’s head. She smiles up at her father, the nail polish brush in her hand, painting a glittery red swath right down Patrick’s ring finger.

Patrick dares a look over his shoulder then, and Duncs and Seabs are red in the face, shoulders shaking where they’re slumped together on the couch, and standing over them, mouth hanging open, is Johnny. He’s staring at Maddy like she’s a ghost, or a demon, which she might actually be since her parents are basically evil, and Patrick’s throat clenches up.

He doesn’t look mad, he doesn’t look like he wants to laugh it off. He looks … he looks caught. Patrick feels a wild, bright flare of hope in his chest and pulls his hands away from Maddy and her rogue brush, holding them up in front of himself, nails out.

“Do you think I’m pretty Johnny?” he asks, and even flutters his eyelashes, because he has to make it a joke, in case Johnny says no. Or maybe even in case Johnny says yes.

Johnny’s eyes lock on his, and he gets his pre-game face on, the one he wears when he knows they need to buckle down and produce, and Patrick’s heart stutters behind his ribs.

“Actually, Kaner,” Johnny says, and Patrick starts to grin, because he has a feeling he’s about to get the answer he’s been wanting for years. “I do.”


End file.
